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Tuesday, 21 December 2010

Phoenix of the year... K-Rudd

Poor old Kevin Rudd had himself a pretty crappy 2010. After his election in 2007 (who could forget the Kevin '07 campaign?), it seemed he would be unstoppable.

He started out the year as Australia's Prime Minister (PM), but the polls were beginning to reveal a slump in popularity. Maybe it was the 80 hour weeks he expected his staff to do? Maybe it was his reneging on the Emissions Trading Scheme? or the proposed Mining Tax? Maybe it was his smugness? Maybe it was because he spent more time out of the country than he did in it? Whatever it was, K-Rudd had done his dash.

On June 24th, K-Rudd stepped down from his role of party leader and PM after a leadership challenge. His nemesis deputy PM, Julia Gillard who is now Australia's PM, became the first Australian female PM (small yay!). Beaten by a rude-red. That must have hurt? K-Rudd was shuffled out of the cabinet and appeared to disappear for a little while. Yesterday's news. Sore ego. Sore loser. Over and out.

And then, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, K-Rudd hit the news again during Labour's Federal Election campaign. He was articulate. All of a sudden he was front-runner for the Foreign Affairs Minister role (a role some say he was coverting the whole time). All of a sudden he was back in the Labour gang.

The boy from Nambour is now soaring. Zipping all over the world in his Foreign Ministerial portfolio. Having his way with the big players on the world stage (although the Wikileaks debacle may have taken the shine off his strong Chinese relationships). Representing Australia like a real pro.

We may not like him. But you have got to hand it to him. K-Rudd has done a full U-turn in 2010 and is king of the pops. He gets my phoenix of the year award.

6 comments:

I agree you can't go past Kevin. I think we all underestimate his intelligence and political talent sometimes. (Don't get me wrong I don't particularly like him but you have to admire him sometimes...)

I liked your Chile post yesterday too. Kept meaning to post a comment but never seemed to get there. One of my favourite reads about Chile is Isabel Allende's memoir "My Invented Country". Fascinating details about her childhood and imprisonment for political reasons.

I think what Kevin did was super smart. If he supported Labour during the election, they had to promise him something. And not to fulfill that promise would have made the Labour Party look bad. So, win/win for everyone really! I didn't like Krudd, ooops K-Rudd and didn't vote for him when he was elected, but I did grow to respect the man. And was very sorry to see him outed the way he was. I can't think of anyone else who made a U-turn like that.